Forsooth purvey thou of all the people wise men, and dreading God, in which is truth, and which hate avarice; and ordain thou of them tribunes [or rulers upon thousands], and centurions [or rulers upon hundreds], and quinquagenaries [or rulers upon fifty], and deans [or rulers upon ten],
Thou shalt not covet the house of thy neighbour, neither thou shalt desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, neither all things that be his.
Therefore I shall give the women of them to strangers, and the fields of them to alien heirs; for from the least unto the most all follow avarice, from a prophet unto the priest all make leasing;
and they come to thee, as if my people entereth, and my people sit before thee, and they hear thy words, and do not those [or them]; for they turn those [or them] into the song of their mouth, and their heart pursueth their avarice;
For of the heart go out evil thoughts [or For out of the heart cometh evil thoughts], manslayings, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessings, blasphemies.
that ye receive her in the Lord worthily to saints, and that ye help her in whatever cause she shall need of you. For she hath helped many men, and myself.
Neither give ye your members arms of wickedness to sin, but give ye yourselves to God, as they that live of dead men, and your members arms of rightwiseness to God.
Meat to the womb, and the womb to meats; and God shall destroy both this and that. And the body not to fornication, but to the Lord, and the Lord to the body.
and lest again when I come, God make me low [or make me humble] with you, and I bewail many of them, that before sinned, and did not penance on the uncleanness, and fornication, and unchastity, that they have done.
For know ye this, and understand, that each lecher [or each fornicator], or unclean man, or covetous [man], that serveth to maumets [or to idols], hath not heritage in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Only live ye worthily to the gospel of Christ, that whether when I come and see you, either absent I hear of you, that ye stand in one spirit of one will, travailing together to the faith of the gospel.
Therefore slay ye your members, which be on the earth, fornication, uncleanness, lechery, evil covetousness, and avarice, which is service of maumets [or simulacra];
For it behooveth a bishop to be without crime, [as] a dispenser of God, not proud, not wrathful, not given to drunkenness, not [a] smiter, not covetous of foul winning;
for among the spoils I saw a red mantle full good, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a golden rule of fifty shekels; and I coveted those, and took away, and I hid those in the earth, against the midst of my tabernacle; and I covered the silver with the earth delved.
but more them that walk after the flesh, in coveting of uncleanness, and despise lordshipping, and be bold, pleasing themselves, and dread not to bring in sects, blaspheming;
and have eyes full of adultery, and unceasing trespass, deceiving unsteadfast souls, and have the heart exercised to covetousness; the sons of cursing,
and they shall make merchandise of you in covetousness by feigned words. To whom doom now a while ago ceaseth not, and the perdition of them nappeth not.
But I have against thee a few things; for thou hast there men holding the teaching of Balaam, which taught Balak to send cause of stumbling before the sons of Israel, to eat of sacrifices of idols, and to do fornication;
But to fearedful men, and unbelieveful, and cursed, and man-quellers, and fornicators, and to witches, and to worshippers of idols, and to all liars, the part of them shall be in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, that is the second death.
For withoutforth [shall be shut] hounds, and witches, and unchaste men, and man-quellers, and serving to idols, and each that loveth and maketh leasing or lies.